The Phoenix Festival

The day after Reading festival, Ryan and I decided to go to another festival, and this one was a lot closer to home – The Phoenix festival in Cirencester. It’s a two day event held in Cirencester’s Abbey Grounds and 2017 celebrates its 5th birthday.

The festival focuses on local musicians – one of my favourite local bands, Subslider, performed Saturday afternoon – and tribute artists. This year’s headline acts were Los Palmas 6 (Madness tribute) and David Live (David Bowie tribute). The event has two main stages, an open mic stage, a DJ booth and a performer’s arena.

It’s very family orientated and boasts fair ground rides, a skate ramp (provided by a local skate shop) and various stalls from face painting to charity and jewellery to bandanas. We picked up a couple of flowery garments ourselves. 🏵🌺 There were many families having picnics on the grass while watching the artists and performers.

As well as the music areas there are plenty of places to eat and drink, and two bars selling cider, various local ales and soft drinks. They have a strict no glass and no spirits rule at the festival! Unfortunately the bar ran out of alcohol before the main act (Bowie Live) on Sunday.

The festival is run by youth volunteers in collaboration with individuals specialising in event management, finance and sound engineering. It relies solely on donations, fundraising and sponsors, entry is free but they encourage you to make a donation when you enter or leave the site.

There’s some festival merchandise on sale and I picked up a wristband for £1.00. It went nicely with my Reading one from the day before but with the added bonus of being able to take it off easily. 😉

The festival was great fun, we met up with some friends and family members, took some Snapchat selfies (and regular selfies!) and listened to some good music. We will be back again next year.